A semiconductor device as one of the microdevices or a liquid-crystal display device as one of the flat panel displays is manufactured using a projection exposure apparatus for projecting a pattern of a mask (reticle, photomask, or the like) onto a substrate (glass plate, semiconductor wafer, or the like) coated with a photosensitive material such as a photoresist, through a projection optical system to effect exposure thereof.
In manufacture of the microdevices such as semiconductor devices, patterns of plural layers are formed on a substrate such as a semiconductor wafer. In this case, a scanning exposure apparatus (scanner) of the step-and-scan method is used to continuously transfer an ultrafine pattern of a mask onto the substrate with synchronous scanning of a mask stage and a substrate stage so as to form a pattern of a certain layer (e.g., lower layer) on the substrate, and a full-field exposure type projection exposure apparatus (stepper) of the step-and-repeat method is used to transfer a rather rough pattern of a mask onto the substrate on which the ultrafine pattern is formed, as overlaid thereon, to form a pattern of another layer (e.g., upper layer) on the substrate (e.g., cf. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-51193 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,600,550 corresponding thereto).